Law of Attraction

"Your mind is a powerful magnet that will attract to you the things you identify yourself with. If you have sad thoughts, you will attract tragedies. If you are a good man, you will attract the company of good people." - Alfredo Karras

I have written about this so many times I am sure you are bored with it by now. 

Another adopted individual has crossed my path. I "met" this guy on a social networking (ahem, dating) site. It is kind of a dating site but not. What I mean is that the end goal, I suppose, for many that are on the site is to hook up. However, the site has tests and quizzes and other stuff that make it (to me) a little less cheesy than eharmony or match.com or such.  I don't go there trolling for men. I have a profile. When I am bored, I take the tests, etc. Rarely do I talk with anyone who writes or stalks me.  Many of them are incredibly disturbing.  One guy likes to go on and on about the size of his member. Another guy has sent me the same lengthy clingy message at least ten times yet each time he calls me by some other name (and I have never once answered the guy).  He is clearly sending this message out to everyone woman on the site.

SCARE - EEE.

But I do belong to the site and occasionally a decent person crosses my screen and we start up conversations, friend each other on facebook or myspace or whatever. In two cases, I ended up assisting the men with single pregnant teens that were in their life.

So, I have been chatting with an interesting fellow.  College professor, creative, interesting, educated, traveled, the kind of person I enjoy.  Multi-lingual, passionate, expressive, gifted. He is intelligent with just the right amount of freak juice pumping through his veins.  Perfect.

So, imagine my surprise (or not), when last night he tells me he is adopted.

Good god.  Does it ever end?

Note my name is not on this site, nor is there any reference to my adoption experience. How, I ask again, do these adoption torched individuals seem to find their way to me?  (Or I to them?).

I emailed Mr. Dink in a fit of hysteria (Mr. Dink is an adoptive dad, you may recall).  I have had conversations with him before about how frequently adoption comes rapping at my door.

I am stupefied.

Once I recovered from my initial shock, I told friend to google me. He did. I wondered if he, an adopted male, would cease our friendship once he figured out my role in adoption. 

• Is he an angry adoptee?
• An adoptee in denial?
• How does he feel about being adopted at 5 months old?
• Does he really want to be friendly with a woman who surrendered her child to adoption? Is that a bad thing for all considered? Is that like someone in drug rehab dating someone they met in rehab?

I once asked Mr. Dink if it was a bad idea for adoption traumatized or PTSD affected people to date. Is it better to get into a different pool? Or is better to swim in the same pool of pain with your partner?

I suspect the truth is, like everything in life, it will vary upon the individual. I personally find incredible comfort in having Mr. Dink as my friend due to his knowledge of trauma. I got past his adoptive dad status because he is just that great of a person AND he was not one of those clueless, self righteous, doofus type of adoptive parents. Our relationship has little to do with adoption and everything to do with treating each other with respect and support.

But could an adoptee date someone who surrendered their child?

I am not suggesting this guy and I are or will date. It is just something I am pondering in general.

Claud once told me she dated an adoptee soon after losing her son. For some reason it just seems too loaded to me. Would the individuals involved be truly caring about each other as people or are they filling a void in their life with the other?  Yet, isn't that what love is on any level - using another to fill a void in your life?

Hmm.

Way too complicated for me to think about today.

Yet I remain - amazed. I am indeed a magnet for adoption.

Or maybe I am a lightening rod?

Comments

[Anna]

Wow! It's so true! Like attracts like!

-Anna

http://law-of-attraction-thoughts.blogspot.com/

[Denise Roessle]

Very weird, Suz... The Karras quote says it all. I believe we attract certain things and people for a variety of reasons, mostly because of what we need to learn in order to move on. (Well, then there is the pattern thing, like women who continue to get into abusive relationships or pair up with alcoholics, usually because of something in their upbringing... but I don't think that's what's at work here.)

I'm going to have to go with lightning rod here. That is, I don't think the people you're meeting (online or otherwise) are coming to you because of YOUR needs, but for their own. Think of all the people you have helped over the years. Even if dude never contacts you again, you have changed his life, his perceptions. Who knows where this brief encounter will take him?

[suz]

Margie - Interestingly,I havent heard from him since.

[Margie]

You are indeed an a-magnet. But I want to know what the college professor said after he googled you!

[joyceregina]

ok, Here it is, Maybe its the talk the talk, walk the walk.

Geez, does this make sense?

[Susan]

When I found out a guy I knew was a birthfather, I glommed onto him like nobody's business. I was clearly trying to, um, work some stuff out. We probably were not totally meant to be together (we certainly still aren't) but his status as a BF blinded me to everything else. I was smitten in a very, er, primal way.